For more than a week, we have cheered as Kiwi Para athletes have won medals and set personal bests at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. Their grit, dedication, skill, and strength have made us all proud, and all will return home as heroes.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!But back home things aren’t looking great for people with disabilities thanks to National’s reckless choices.
Last month, the National Government announced that Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People, would have its functions dramatically reduced, and its responsibilities for disability support services moved to the Ministry of Social Development.
The gutting of Whaikaha, an organisation that embedded disabled peoples’ voices at all levels of decisions making, was a massive blow for the community.
But somehow, this was just one in a series of disastrous moves the Government has made against the disability community this year.
National paused the Enabling Good Lives programme, which gives disabled people more choice and control regarding the support they receive.
They restricted access to residential care homes, tightening the rules without planning where the many disabled people who didn’t fit the new criteria would go.
They limited flexible funding, severely restricting the types of services and equipment disabled people could access, and significantly reduced carer support.
They removed disability support funding for programmes during school hours, cutting programmes that are often tailored to the specific needs of the child and offered only during the day.
Wherever you look, disabled people – including children – their families, and their carers are losing the financial and personal support, programmes, and advocacy that enables them to live fulfilling and self-determined lives. Their voices have been completely ignored by a National Government all too happy to give millions in tax cuts to tobacco companies and billions to landlords, while taking from those who most need assistance.
Kiwis did not vote for this, and the messages we’re getting are overwhelmingly against these cruel cuts.
The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members, and this Government’s actions show they are in a massive rush to take us all backwards.
At least they have raised fines for parking in disabled car parks without a permit, but even this significant positive move feels like a sop for a community whose trust in this Government has been thoroughly demolished. In the disability community there’s widespread contempt for National’s motivations and no belief in their ability to improve lives.
Disabled people have a right to greater choice and control over the supports they need to lead a dignified life. Under Labour, while things may not have been perfect, we were moving towards a society where they received those things. But in the months National has been in power they aren’t even an afterthought – merely a line item to be downsized for the benefit of the rich.
– Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan